Peebles' Perfectly Pointless Popular Prattle - Random Banter #211

[LaZodiac]

LaZodiac cleans for a job. She is tough. She can take care of it. And did.

Awe, thanks. I don't think I'm that tough though. And technically Mom did because she phoned the plumber to deal with it, I just cleaned up the floor. And concerning my phone I had a friend walk me through how to fix it

[Teddy]

But I agree with LaZodiac so very much. It is somber. I had to take a day to put my thoughts together and look past the sadness. It is still there though.

If this is a real thing. Putting all our goodbyes into a card the way TaiLiu made a google documents card for TechnoScrabble. If we mean to say these things and make sure Kneenibble hears them. I want to say please read the end of The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock. No, read the whole somber thing, and anything else I have written here and backspaced is wrong. And that is a lot.

It is a real thing in that I'm going to (hand-)write a letter back to Kneen, and I'm going to mention that people will miss him but wish him good luck in his future endeavours, plus anything people say which they force me to mention or which otherwise is too good not to. Mind you that this won't be a letter of goodbye from my side, because I know I can always keep up the correspondence (if Kneen is kind enough to send his new address once he moves ), but I didn't want to leave you all hanging in limbo, since I know how much I hate that uncertainity myself. But yeah, keep it cheery, an it'll probably better fit the tone of the letter. Or dramatic, since we all know he has a flair for that.

And Thufir could get very lucky at the charity shop and also get a wheeled thing or a wheeled chair and pull it home that way. Or be extra lazyfun and sit in a wheeled chair and just pull it home with his feet without ever getting up and walking. Or get a long stick thing too and pole himself home in a chairboat!

Hehehe, this mental image is just too great! But make that pole an exquisite gentleman's cane instead.

That is weird. Backspace is so clean and so perfect. I did not think about crossing things out after you write them and how that is also going to be a kind of a lost skill. Crossing them out to not be readable any more.

Well, I don't think people are going to forget how to cross out writing on a paper anytime soon. If you know how to apply colour to a paper using any pen-like medium, you can probably figure out how to render text illegible (at least symbolically) with it.

[LaZodiac]

TALES FROM THE ZODI-LAND

Spoiler

Show

The people who are existent in my life are ****ing insane. So, co worker at the bar who's a friend of mine, Zoey, she and her friends were going to go out and see the hypnotist show that our bar is putting on. Her friends decided to ditch the really delicious food and thehypnotist show to instead go drinking at a bar full of nothing high quality. So now Zoey is having a sad, and I have been recruited by Mom to come and be her friend from 6:30 to 10:30.

[HalfTangible]

TALES FROM THE ZODI-LAND

Spoiler

Show

The people who are existent in my life are ****ing insane. So, co worker at the bar who's a friend of mine, Zoey, she and her friends were going to go out and see the hypnotist show that our bar is putting on. Her friends decided to ditch the really delicious food and thehypnotist show to instead go drinking at a bar full of nothing high quality. So now Zoey is having a sad, and I have been recruited by Mom to come and be her friend from 6:30 to 10:30.

Zodi knows my thoughts on this already, buuuut...

Spoiler

Show

If she wanted to get drunk WHY DIDN'T SHE JUST GET DRUNK AT YOUR BAR?! Then they could've seen the hypnotist! And hypnosis shows are awesome =(

[No brains]

Would anybody happen to know some kind of succinct way of sayng, "Powerful, but not in any really useful way"? If you need help imagining what I'm asking for, it's like King Henry yelling "My kingdom for a horse"; having a kingdom was a p. good deal for him up until that moment when he really needed that horse. Or something akin to all of Spider-Man's powers doing very little to actually help the life of Peter Parker. Some way of nicely expressing this must exist, but my mind isn't making the connection and I don't want to try and parse it into a Google search and end up frustrated and forgetting it.

I've had some success asking random questions like this around this thread before, and I don't want to start a new thread just to ask a question that could be answered in just a single post. Do you think you can help me?

[enderlord99]

Would anybody happen to know some kind of succinct way of sayng, "Powerful, but not in any really useful way"? If you need help imagining what I'm asking for, it's like King Henry yelling "My kingdom for a horse"; having a kingdom was a p. good deal for him up until that moment when he really needed that horse. Or something akin to all of Spider-Man's powers doing very little to actually help the life of Peter Parker. Some way of nicely expressing this must exist, but my mind isn't making the connection and I don't want to try and parse it into a Google search and end up frustrated and forgetting it.

I've had some success asking random questions like this around this thread before, and I don't want to start a new thread just to ask a question that could be answered in just a single post. Do you think you can help me?

Situationally Ironic, perhaps?

[LaZodiac]

God this was awful.

Spoiler: Overview of Hypnotist

Show

the show was good from thehypnotist's perspective, the crowd was just ****ing stupid. The three marks where a brick ****house of brains who didn't get what was going on at all, until around the middle f the show. Then he botches the last part of it so hard that I actually laughed, it was so funny. SEcond was a girl who kind of got what she was expected to do, but didn't get the more finer details and was also pregnant and sick from it so that happened. Lastly was a frech canadian guy who was only on during the last bit, but completely missunderstood what he was supposed to do.

Spoiler: Example of Awful

Show

[12:03:39 AM] LaZodiac: [12:00 AM]
this entire situation was basically garbage from point one
the Hypnotist finds the brickheaded guy, Nick
ad gets Nick to stand up
and the hypnotist hypnotizes him
and says that he'll start swaying, back and forth
and Nick just stands there
and does nothing
and the hypnotist repeats "back and forth, sway back and forth"
and Nick still doesn't get it
and then the hypnotist says "some people sway a little faster, some sway slower. Sway back and forth, back and forth"
and Nick finally gets it and starts swaying and the show can continue
and it was like that for the whole night.

[enderlord99]

God this was awful.

Spoiler: Overview of Hypnotist

Show

the show was good from thehypnotist's perspective, the crowd was just ****ing stupid. The three marks where a brick ****house of brains who didn't get what was going on at all, until around the middle f the show. Then he botches the last part of it so hard that I actually laughed, it was so funny. SEcond was a girl who kind of got what she was expected to do, but didn't get the more finer details and was also pregnant and sick from it so that happened. Lastly was a frech canadian guy who was only on during the last bit, but completely missunderstood what he was supposed to do.

Spoiler: Example of Awful

Show

[12:03:39 AM] LaZodiac: [12:00 AM]
this entire situation was basically garbage from point one
the Hypnotist finds the brickheaded guy, Nick
ad gets Nick to stand up
and the hypnotist hypnotizes him
and says that he'll start swaying, back and forth
and Nick just stands there
and does nothing
and the hypnotist repeats "back and forth, sway back and forth"
and Nick still doesn't get it
and then the hypnotist says "some people sway a little faster, some sway slower. Sway back and forth, back and forth"
and Nick finally gets it and starts swaying and the show can continue
and it was like that for the whole night.

What's "stupid" about not being a highly-suggestible pushover?

[Coidzor]

What's "stupid" about not being a highly-suggestible pushover?

Nothing, although that's not what was being discussed, now was it?

Not being able to understand relatively simple instructions after several rephrasings and repetitions, on the other hand...

[LaZodiac]

What's "stupid" about not being a highly-suggestible pushover?

Hypnotism doesn't work that way. You can't make someone do something they wouldn't do. All hypnotism is is a means of easing the mark into participating in an improve comedy act, with the excuse of "I was hypnotized" whenever they do something extremely weird in public on stage. It's all just a cover, and these people didn't get it at all.

Spoiler: Another hilarious situation

Show

Nick was actually great because the hypnotist asked him for any characteristics he had (to obviously expand upon those through hypnotism)
but Nick said he was smart
and the hypnotist just ****in' shifted gears so hard I could hear the clutch break

[enderlord99]

Nothing, although that's not what was being discussed, now was it?

Yes. It was.

Not being able to understand relatively simple instructions after several rephrasings and repetitions, on the other hand...

...is, from an external perspective, indistinguishable from understanding the instructions perfectly well and simply refusing to obey them.

[LaZodiac]

Yes. It was.

...is, from an external perspective, indistinguishable from understanding the instructions perfectly well and simply refusing to obey them.

You had to be there, I think, to get the full picture of what I'm talking about. It really was just a case of the people involved being too drunk and stupid to get it.

[enderlord99]

You had to be there, I think, to get the full picture of what I'm talking about. It really was just a case of the people involved being too drunk and stupid to get it.

You didn't say Nick was drunk before, though I suppose, given the venue, that should have been obvious.

[LaZodiac]

You didn't say Nick was drunk before, though I suppose, given the venue, that should have been obvious.

This is a good point, both my neglecting to say it and the inherent obviousness of it.

[VincentTakeda]

The fact that he's drunk is supposed to have lowered his inhibitions, and the theory of hypnotism as a stage act is that people inherently have a desire to do cut loose and be a little crazy, so a hypnotist should be able to get drunk people to follow instructions pretty easily.

I agree there's no way as an outside observer to tell whether the guy was just not sober enough to follow directions, or if he was 'cutting loose' in a different way... by not following instructions on purpose... also for comedic effect.

Thankfully there are a few situaions in life that, for comedy value, are a win-win

[Solse]

LaZodiac cleans for a job. She is tough. She can take care of it. And did.

I can imagine LaZodiac with her janitorial powers saving people from water-related mishaps. The final battle would be (after power creep, of course), her against a tsunami.

It's a bit more complicated than that: I volunteer at a city farm one day of the week, but my actual current job is at a stables/riding school. Both places have been swamped with children/families because it's the half-term break this week. I generally like children older than four, but this has been just exhausting.

So both places you work at are with animals? Neat. What's a city farm like compared to a rural farm? Also, sorry bout the child overload. It's probably stressful dealing with lots of little kids (and not just the goats ).

They're both pretty fun places most of the time, but there's a lot of manual labour, animal handling (general rule: small farm animals are better because they're easier to push about and store, small horses are worse because they're more agressive and harder to groom), dirty jobs, bad weather and hay/straw everywhere involved. If you can get past that it's very rewarding keeping the animals healthy. It's generally easier to form a close bond with horses, and you don't have to send them off to be slaughtered, but on the other hand, goats. and sheep, cows, ferrets, rabbits, beardies and tarantulas. They all have their quirks and the variety and randomness is a great part of farm work, unless several crisies happen at once.

I'm not one for manual labor and dirt, but I can see how it's fun raising animals. Any kooky animal stories you can share? I assume that there's more to being on a farm (or stables) than just cleaning up horse crap.

The farm is where we've been trying to get the Pokémon Card match happening, because most of the staff there are massive geeks. I've never been so happy to have a terrible joke shot down with the phrase "<Durkoala>, no more physics jokes!", because they understood it.

It's too ingrained into the cultural consciousness that only "hillbillies" work on farms and you're disgusting if you're a farmer. I think that's pretty cool that a bunch of fellow nerds are on a farm, like one big geek party. I feel like nowadays, more and more people are finding that it's socially acceptable to be a geek, so you find more and more geeks in places before unexplored by geekdom.

[Mx.Silver]

Would anybody happen to know some kind of succinct way of sayng, "Powerful, but not in any really useful way"? If you need help imagining what I'm asking for, it's like King Henry yelling "My kingdom for a horse"; having a kingdom was a p. good deal for him up until that moment when he really needed that horse.

I don't think there is a specific term for it. The line you're using as an example (which is attributed to Richard III, in the play of the same name) is an instance of dramatic irony, but that's a term you use to describe an event or situation.

'Deceptively vulnerable/powerless' would be the closest approximation I can think of.

[LaZodiac]

Blargh had a bad dream. Was hanging out with people from school and all it really did was remind me of how I really don't like any of them.

[VincentTakeda]

Would anybody happen to know some kind of succinct way of sayng, "Powerful, but not in any really useful way"? If you need help imagining what I'm asking for, it's like King Henry yelling "My kingdom for a horse"; having a kingdom was a p. good deal for him up until that moment when he really needed that horse.

Dangerously irrelevant.
(His lack of ability to excel will get us into trouble some day)

Brevet competence.
(He's in a position far above his capabilities.)

Fantastically mundane.
(Surprisingly unable to stand out in any meaningful way.)
(More average than I gave him credit for)

Remarkably unremarkable.
(I cannot say enough good things about him... Literally. There's not enough good things about him for me to say one.)

Fun.
(Usually used to describe a passionate but meaningless relationship with an ex)

Nerdrageous.
(Nerdrage being both extremely powerful and vehement, while at the same time entirely ineffective)

Corporate
(Administratively powerful, yet completely inept at performing the legitimate day to day functions on their own)
(My super power is that I have lots of friends that are *actually* useful)
(My most powerful feature is my ability to delegate)

Torquey
(Better at roaching the tires than actually getting down the road)
(She bucks like a Bronco, but I wouldn't call her fast)

Healthy
(Best I can say about him is that at least he's not dead yet)
(Happy meal with apple slices and no fries... Not exactly what I'd call happy)

[HalfTangible]

Blargh had a bad dream. Was hanging out with people from school and all it really did was remind me of how I really don't like any of them.

Then why do you hang out with them?!

[HalfTangible]

What's "stupid" about not being a highly-suggestible pushover?

What about being put under hypnosis is worth the disdain in your tone?

[enderlord99]

What about being put under hypnosis is worth the disdain in your tone?

I have no idea. Nothing, probably. I was likely just in a bad mood when I typed that, to be honest.

ION: I'm making a setting, and I'm recording every possible detail about it in a spreadsheet. I've challenged myself to not include any races called "humans" nor any that might as well be humans. The closest things I have are the Elves and the Orcs, both of which (will) have quite a bit to differentiate them from "generic race of mortals." As a preview of the setting (which I might and might not eventually publish) I will share the following (in setting) facts:

1. Each race was (basically) begun by a single god, which is considered their "patron."
2. A race's "patron" has vast power over that race.
3. Gods are a race.
4. The gods have three leaders of roughly equal power.

I think it's fairly obvious whence one of those leaders derives his authority... but what of the other two? Stay tuned!

[LaZodiac]

Then why do you hang out with them?!

You ask a good point. Maybe it's some kind of symbolism thing because I spent time yesterday doing something I wanted due to obligation?

[HalfTangible]

Oh, we're sharing setting details now? =D

In the land of [world name], a young priest of [Matriarchal Religion] in [Holy Kingdom] is betrothed to a Princess of the land of [Empire]: [Female MC], a firecracker of a lady who has mastered her land's most sacred power. You see, [Empire] is a land where neither magic nor industry has taken full hold - instead, the people utilize a unique art known as Access, where a person takes on the personality, abilities and skills of fictional characters that they make up themselves. The priest's marriage secures [Empire]'s alliance with [Holy Kingdom], but he has a second task: to discover the secrets of access, and bring it to his kingdom.

... It's a work in progress.

Some goals:
-Have an arranged marriage (within the story itself) that ISN'T a completely miserable affair for both parties.
-Explore the consequences of living in a world where a large portion of an empire has the power to alter their skills and abilities on the fly (or even increase them to absurd levels)
-At some point, [Female MC] will turn into a fire-breathing T-Rex. Because.

[Durkoala]

I'm trying to write something, but I need music to help me work on it. I'd like something slow-paced and melancholic, that gives the feeling of saying farewell to everything and everyone before leaving on a long journey. A touch of anticipation at the journey would be nice, but the focus should be on sadly saying goodbye to the familar. Thank you.

TALES FROM THE ZODI-LAND

Spoiler

Show

The people who are existent in my life are ****ing insane. So, co worker at the bar who's a friend of mine, Zoey, she and her friends were going to go out and see the hypnotist show that our bar is putting on. Her friends decided to ditch the really delicious food and thehypnotist show to instead go drinking at a bar full of nothing high quality. So now Zoey is having a sad, and I have been recruited by Mom to come and be her friend from 6:30 to 10:30.

...God this was awful.

Spoiler: Overview of Hypnotist

Show

the show was good from thehypnotist's perspective, the crowd was just ****ing stupid. The three marks where a brick ****house of brains who didn't get what was going on at all, until around the middle f the show. Then he botches the last part of it so hard that I actually laughed, it was so funny. SEcond was a girl who kind of got what she was expected to do, but didn't get the more finer details and was also pregnant and sick from it so that happened. Lastly was a frech canadian guy who was only on during the last bit, but completely missunderstood what he was supposed to do.

Spoiler: Example of Awful

Show

[12:03:39 AM] LaZodiac: [12:00 AM]
this entire situation was basically garbage from point one
the Hypnotist finds the brickheaded guy, Nick
ad gets Nick to stand up
and the hypnotist hypnotizes him
and says that he'll start swaying, back and forth
and Nick just stands there
and does nothing
and the hypnotist repeats "back and forth, sway back and forth"
and Nick still doesn't get it
and then the hypnotist says "some people sway a little faster, some sway slower. Sway back and forth, back and forth"
and Nick finally gets it and starts swaying and the show can continue
and it was like that for the whole night.

Ouch. well, at least you (and your unfortunate friend, if she was there) got some laughs out of it.

I can imagine LaZodiac with her janitorial powers saving people from water-related mishaps. The final battle would be (after power creep, of course), her against a tsunami.

By the sound of it, she's already started a rogues gallery.

So both places you work at are with animals? Neat. What's a city farm like compared to a rural farm? Also, sorry bout the child overload. It's probably stressful dealing with lots of little kids (and not just the goats ).


I'm not one for manual labor and dirt, but I can see how it's fun raising animals. Any kooky animal stories you can share? I assume that there's more to being on a farm (or stables) than just cleaning up horse crap.

City farms have less space, for obvious reasons. This means that there's less animals than a rural farm and they're usually smaller breeds. Because it's harder for them to match the money a larger farm can bring in, most city farms are also petting zoos and charities. I spent last wednesday standing around with a donation churn in one hand and a sheep on a string in the other.

Goat kids are flippin' adorable, even when they have holes in their heads after their horns have been removed. Adult goats are also adorable. They do smell, though. Human kids... too many of them grabbing at the sheep, pulling ears and poking and not letting go.... to be honest, the pony club were more of a pain because while they know how to look after animals, they tied up about nine ponies on the yard for grooming and there was nowhere to put the horses that needed mucking out. They're also our direct responbility, which is another level of stress.

Animal stories.... Well, there's a few, such as the time one of the ponies barged past me, ran out of the yard and I had to chase after her before she reached the football (soccer) field, where she would be nearly uncatchable. It's important to know that the path she ran down took her past the field where we were keeping some of the other horses. When I caught her, I'd not had the time to get any headcollars, halters or ropes, so I just had to grab a handful of mane and push her about to go back. When we passed the horses' field, they remembered her running past earlier and started cantering about. She decided to join in, and while she was a small pony she still weighed at least 300kg and I didn't have a secure hold of her. She took off at the same speed as before and I chased after shouting a few swearwords... and nearly ran over some poor family out for a walk, first the pony, then my family-unfriendly dialogue, then me.

Unfortunately, I missed this one, but there's photo evidence in the farm office. Like I said earlier, city farms usually have a petting zoo component, in this case selling little bags of animal feed for the public to feed to the ruminants. While we used to sell these over the farm shop counter, we later switched to small vending machines, which had a few early issues. You see, there was an ideal spot to put them, right outside the cows' field. One of the cows worked out that food came out of the machine when people put money in, so she started loitering by the feed machines. When somebody came along and bought some food, she would quickly stick her tounge in the trough and eat it before they could put in the bag.


The most recent isn't so much an animal story as one of those times where you say the wrong thing without thinking, but it's pretty funny. Basically, I noticed that one of the farm staff had taken her pet ball python out of it's vivarium and accidently said the worst thing possible.
Me: Oh, you've got your snake out! (because ball pythons are cute)
(there's a slight pause while I realise what I've said and facepalm. The room bursts out laughing.)
Her: Yep, he's three and a half feet long.
(more laughter)

It's too ingrained into the cultural consciousness that only "hillbillies" work on farms and you're disgusting if you're a farmer. I think that's pretty cool that a bunch of fellow nerds are on a farm, like one big geek party. I feel like nowadays, more and more people are finding that it's socially acceptable to be a geek, so you find more and more geeks in places before unexplored by geekdom.

In the UK, the stereotype is more of a laid back, slow to talk person who is a bit isolated from city life and is generally busy doing difficult farming stuff. It's not any more correct, but it is a much more welcoming image.

Most farmers are actually pretty intelligent, as they have to balance their profits and losses, know about animal or plant biology, keep track of everything that goes on at the farm, know what drugs and what doses are needed for their livestock/fields, be able to identify various diseases and parasites and many other things. I'm glad I'm just a farmhand for the moment. The place where I am is pretty geeky, though.

[LaZodiac]

Ouch. well, at least you (and your unfortunate friend, if she was there) got some laughs out of it.

Well that's the thing, everyone but me had a rip roaring good time! They loved it!

[Durkoala]

Well that's the thing, everyone but me had a rip roaring good time! They loved it!

Umm... Not really much to say to that. At least somebody had a good time? I hope it's not normally that bad.

*cough*

[LaZodiac]

Umm... Not really much to say to that. At least somebody had a good time? I hope it's not normally that bad.

*cough*

Well the thing is, the hypnotist was really good. The audience members he chose to hypnotise were bad. And everyone did have fun, and in a twisted way I had fun since I laughed the failures of Nick so hard I cried. So like, it was enjoyable, and succeeding in being funny, just in the wrong way.

[Razanir]

In other news, my latest accomplishment as I procrastinate on homework: I know the words to the African chant at the beginning of the Circle of Life.

[LaZodiac]

In other news, my latest accomplishment as I procrastinate on homework: I know the words to the African chant at the beginning of the Circle of Life.

I love how the translation of that is basically "Yup, that's a lion. Here comes the lion."